Free Speech Week

David Cole is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and former National Legal Director of the ACLU. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books and is legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is the author or editor of ten books, including “No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System,” and “Engines of Liberty: How Citizen Movements Succeed”.

David has litigated many pathbreaking cases in the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson, which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that Title VII bans discrimination on the basis of transgender status and sexual orientation; and National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which held that government officials cannot use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties into blacklisting a disfavored political organization. He has received many awards for his civil liberties work.